At the outset, it has be said with deep dismay, dejection and disappointment that Centre has repeatedly poured cold water on the legitimate demand of the more than 9 crore people of West UP for a high court bench in West UP which lawyers of 26 districts are unitedly raising under the banner of “Central Action Committee” formed in May 1981 to pursue the dire need of a high court bench in West UP and take it to its logical conclusion! It cannot be dismissed lightly that Centre which had itself appointed Justice Jaswant Singh Commission headed by former Supreme Court Judge Justice Jaswant Singh to look into where all high court benches are needed had recommended for high court bench at Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Jalpaiguri in West Bengal and Madurai in Tamil Nadu which were immediately accepted but most shockingly did not accept its landmark recommendations to create 3 high court benches in the then undivided UP at Agra, Dehradun and Nainital. To protest this worst form of discrimination, the lawyers of West UP have been going on strike every Saturday since May 1981 till date even as 2019 is about to start but Centre has taken no initiative to address this age old demand! The lawyers of 13 districts of Uttarakhand too participated along with lawyers of West UP in strike but they got justice in 2000 when Centre decided to create it as separate state and give it high court itself instead of just bench! Uttarakhand with then population of 88 lakh succeeded in getting statehood in 2000 but West UP with a population of more than 9 crore which is more than any other state except UP of which it is itself a part, Maharashtra and Bihar and here too Bihar area is 94,000 square km and that of West UP is 98,933 square km yet has not even a bench leave alone high court! Is this fair?
How can it be discounted that the high court itself of UP was initially in West UP from 1866 to 1869 at Agra then why after more than 150 years can a bench alone not be created in West UP? How can it be discounted that the UP CM Sampoornanand had categorically recommended for a high court bench in 1955 at Meerut but Centre again poured cold water? How can it be discounted that many other UP CM like ND Tiwari, Rajnath Singh who is now Union Home Minister among others had recommended bench for West UP but Centre refused?
How can it be discounted that Mayawati as UP CM in 1995 had categorically recommended the partition of UP into 5 parts with West UP being also recommended as separate state to be named “Harit Pradesh” yet Centre callously disregarded the same? How can it be discounted that Kapil Sibal as Union Law Minister had categorically recommended the creation of a high court bench at Meerut as was revealed by another former Union Minister RPN Singh who also revealed that the then state government did not cooperate in going ahead with this great revolutionary proposal forwarded by Kapil Sibal? How can it be discounted that lawyers of 26 districts of West UP have gone on strike even for 6 months as was done in 2001, for 4 to 5 months as was done in 2014-15 and for nearly a month as is seen usually every year since last many decades?
How can it be discounted that BJP had promised that if their party came to power in UP and in Centre, it will waste no time to create a high court bench in West UP? How can it be discounted that when women lawyer KR Chitra filed a PIL demanding creation of high court bench in West UP, the CJI Ranjan Gogoi appreciated the need for the same and the valid demand raised but clarified that it is not in their domain but it is for Centre to take a final call on this? How can it be discounted that Soli J Sorabjee as Attorney General had said in 2001 that, “Centre can create a high court bench in West UP without any recommendation from the State Government or the Chief Justice”?
How can it be discounted that even former Supreme Court Bar Association Chairman BN Krishnamani had said that, “Only by the creation of a high court bench in West UP will the people living there get real and effective justice. It should not be denied to them rather should be given at the earliest”? How can it be discounted that as per Section 51 of the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, the Centre can create a high court bench in any of the 3 states – UP, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir by directly bringing it up in Parliament? How can it be discounted that Jawaharlal Nehru had created a high court bench in Lucknow which is just about 200 km away from Allahabad in 1948 on July 1 but no bench created anywhere even 70 years later in any other part of UP even though the people of West UP are compelled to travel more than 700 to 800 km on an average all the way to Allahabad to get justice?
Is this not a violation of right to equality as enshrined under Article 14 of our Constitution? If Lucknow is capital then so is Bhopal which is capital of Madhya Pradesh, Bhubaneshwar which is capital of Odisha, Dispur which is capital of Assam, Dehradun which is capital of Uttarakhand, Thiruvananthapuram which is capital of Kerala, Raipur which is capital of Chhattisgarh and so many others also but they have neither high court nor bench! Why then was Lucknow only selected for a bench and not any other city like we see in Madhya Pradesh having high court at Jabalpur and benches at Gwalior and Indore?
Why should the people numbering more than 9 crore of West UP be made to travel so far to seek justice at Allahabad which is more away than even Lahore High Court in Pakistan and even the high court or bench of 8 different states are nearer to West UP as compared to Allahabad? Why should “justice at doorsteps”, “speedy justice” and “affordable justice” be denied to the more than 9 crore people of West UP? Why Centre has created so many small states with population of just few lakhs as we see in Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura etc to whom high court have been given and why for more than 9 crore people of West UP even a single bench of high court is being denied to them so callously?
How can it be discounted that it is West UP which owes for more than half of the pending cases of UP as was testified even by Justice Jaswant Singh Commission and contributes maximum revenue to state yet both high court and a bench are in Eastern UP? How long will Centre keep denying high court bench to lawless West UP where even police officers themselves are not safe and are killed most mercilessly by criminals as we saw just recently in Bulandshahr what to talk of others? In 2011 in Moradabad an SSP was nearly beaten to death and in 2016 an Additional SP was actually killed in Mathura! Riots break out anytime in any of the 26 districts of West UP still Centre stupidly, senselessly and shamelessly refuses to create a high court bench in any of the districts of West UP refusing to learn nothing from the past! No doubt, West UP is sitting on a dangerous powder keg which can explode any time if damage control measures are not taken right now and the first and foremost step should be to straightaway create a high court bench in any of the 26 districts of West UP!
Why Centre in 2012 created 2 more benches at Dharwad and Gulbarga for just 4 and 8 districts in Karnataka which already had a bench at Hubli while not accepting the then Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal’s landmark recommendation to create a high court bench in Meerut? Why this present dispensation led by PM Narendra Modi ignores that the tallest leader of his party and former PM late Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his right senses had forcefully demanded the creation of a high court bench in West UP in 1986 right inside Parliament? Why Modi ignores that he himself too in past had appreciated the dire need of the same? Why Modi ignores that many of his Union Cabinet Ministers like Rajnath Singh who is Union Home Minister has himself supported the creation of a high court bench in West UP and so is the case with Gen VK Singh, Dr Mahesh Sharma and most important of all the former Mumbai Police Commissioner and present Union Cabinet Minister Satyapal Singh who even demanded 5 benches for UP at Meerut, Agra, Varanasi, Jhansi and Gorakhpur but still why Centre is not prepared to create even a single bench of high court in any hook and corner of UP even while creating more benches for other states?
Why Centre conveniently and callously ignores what the former UP Chief Justice Dilip Babasaheb Bhosale who just recently relinquished office had said while he was Chief Justice of UP after the horrifying gang rape of women on national highway in Bulandshahr in West UP that, “Women in UP are not safe even on national highways with their families whereas in Maharashtra women can venture out anywhere alone at any time without any fear of being killed or raped or even harassed in any manner” yet still see the stark reality that Maharashtra has 4 benches with latest at Kolhapur for just 6 districts and UP just one and West UP which reports maximum cases has none? How long will Centre keep overlooking the tremendous problems faced by the people of West UP in travelling whole night many times without reservation all the way to Allahabad, huge expenses incurred in staying expenses, hiring lawyer expenses etc?
Why Centre ignores that Allahabad high court is the oldest high court in India along with Calcutta, Bombay and Madras which completed 150 years in 2016 and is the biggest in whole of Asia with maximum Judges in high court at 160 still why it has least benches in India and why West UP where a senior police officer was murdered by rampaging criminals in Bulandshahr so openly has no bench? Why no effort is made by Centre at all to create more benches even though the lawyers of more than 26 districts of West UP have been staging regular protests since last several decades and have been on strike every Saturday since last more than 37 years and which started from May 1981 and have also gone on strike for 6 months as in 2001 and for 3 to 4 months as in 2014-15 and for a month or weeks together as has been the trend since many years and now again on 13 December and 14 December the lawyers will be on strike and lodge their protest by marching up till Parliament? Why so much of insensitivity on the part of Centre inspite of knowing fully well that the former UN Secretary General while in office had slammed UP as “rape and crime capital of India”?
Why the landmark recommendations of 230th Law Commission of India to create more benches not implemented in one of the largest state of India with maximum population at 22 crore, maximum villages more than one lakh whereas no other state has more than 5000 villages, maximum towns more than 900, maximum districts at 75, maximum MPs for Lok Sabha at 80, maximum MPs for Rajya Sabha at 31, maximum MLAs in Vidhan Parishad at 104, maximum MLAs in Vidhan Sabha at 404, maximum pending cases at more than 10 lakh which is more than 10 small states put together and here too West UP owes for more than half of them, maximum pending cases both in High Court and lower courts, maximum Judges in High Courts at 160, maximum Judges in lower courts which is more than several states put together, maximum Mayors, maximum elected representatives, maximum incidents of crime, maximum incidents of riots and communal violence etc? It is a crying national shame for which we all need to hang our heads in shame and sorrow! How long will Centre keep denying high court bench to lawless West UP where even police officers themselves are not safe? How long will lawyers of West UP be compelled to strike repeatedly as they will do now on December 13 to 15 and instead of working will register protest outside Parliament along with the people?
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